Home
by LadyLorena
Summary: Loki has been away from Asgard for hundreds of years. His losses trigger a need for home and he travels back, hoping someone there will take him.


It was time to go home.

Of course, Loki had no idea what home was like now that a millennia and a half had passed since he had been there last, but home was still home and Thor was still on the throne. There was at least something familiar in that.

He'd spent the greater part of the first thousand years in Jotunheim causing trouble as both citizen and then king. Then he had travelled around until landing in Midgard. It was easy to blend in there, with so many different kinds of faces and creatures living in the same place.

But it had been there he had finally understood.

He'd eventually settled in Iceland and kept a small flat in the capital city of Reykjavik. He lived quietly, not wanting to draw the attention of Thor or anyone else who might want to interrupt his solitude, every so often changing his face and moving in or out in order to satisfy the curiosity of the residents around him who never saw him age. All they saw was a series of delightfully quiet young people who moved in and out of the flat over a period of forty years before the world-wide war.

The war. It had encompassed the entire realm, young men from all nations called together to fight. Of course, nations were more symbolic than anything, the most of them under continental governance, but still, the flags from millenia past were paraded around to drum up patriotic spirit and recruit soldiers. When the recruitment hadn't garnered enough bodies for the front, men and women were drafted, including Loki. He went to war wearing his own face. He fought well, very careful to hide his magic and use only the combat skills he had developed over the years when it would be obvious to the Midgardians what he was doing. He never did bother to understand their war machines and weaponry, instead using his illusion to make it look like he knew what he was doing, actually fighting only when they were in close combat when he could use his daggers.

He'd lost a lot in the fight. A good part of his thigh was blown off in an explosion and never healed right. His ribs never quite felt right after flying through the air and hitting a concrete wall. He lost most of the fingers on his right hand and part of his right ear. Scars ran down that side of his face, scars he did his best to hide after the war. Most young men were disfigured in one way or another, and many of the young women. People questioned if you were not visibly scarred, so he let the missing fingers and the limp stay, but his face he was too proud to let the depth of the scars show. He found it sadly funny that he was finally as scarred on the outside as he was on the inside.

After the war, he came home to Reykjavik to find the city largely destroyed, piles of rubble where buildings once stood. He stood in front of what had been his apartment building and wondered if there was anything left in the rubble that might be his.

As he climbed on top of the bricks and block, a young woman passing by stopped and called out to him, "Just coming home?" He nodded, "You're not going to find anything. Central government was here right after it happened and boxed up anything the could identify. It's in a warehouse outside of town. Everything else was taken by the scrappers the night after they came through."

Loki sighed and returned to where he had set his pack on the street, now everything he owned, "Thank you."

She took a long look at him, "Do you need help finding the warehouse? It's not too far, we can walk there together."

He accepted her offer, "Loki. My name's Loki."

She extended her hand, "Mary. Your folks must have liked the ancient stories to give you a name like that."

He smiled, "And I apparently caused a lot of trouble as a child, so I apparently grew into it well."

They made small talk as they walked and she waited for him as he went into the warehouse to look for any of his possessions. When he returned, he carried only a small cardboard box. He thanked her for the escort and then started walking back to town before she interrupted him and asked if he had a place to stay. He told her he did not and she invited him to stay in her guest room until he could find a home. There was little left of Reykjavik, but some places were building extra barracks style housing so at least the soldiers were not homeless. He again accepted her kindness.

He had not planned to stay long with Mary, but they enjoyed each others' company and soon they were friends, and not long after, lovers. She was strong, her dark eyes playful and intelligent, her copper hair soft. He let down his guard around her and talked about the war a little, letting his scars become a little more pronounced every day until he no longer had to live with the illusion that he was unscathed. He considered it a test to see if Mary could handle the depth of his injuries. She hardly seemed to notice, only commenting one day a few weeks after he'd dropped the illusion that his scars seemed more pronounced as of late and she was worried that there might be something wrong that he should have a doctor looked at. He assured her he was fine.

Then everything changed. The government decided that certain genetic markers were not desirable in their population and they wanted to make sure that, as the world was repopulated after the war, these markers were eliminated. Multiple plans were discussed on the news, all of them supposition. No nation left standing after the war rejected the idea. Loki feared for Mary, but she said her family had never had any troubles passing genetic tests before the war and she would be fine.

They never did say what traits they wanted to eliminate. They also never said how they were going to eliminate them, but the day came when vast numbers of people became very very ill all within the span of a week. An epidemic. People panicked. Some fled for the countryside, others built bunkers and shot those who came to their doorstep seeking aid. Loki stayed with Mary, hoping that the weakness and chills she had been feeling were not part of the plague.

It took a month for people to begin dying and in that time, Mary found out she was pregnant. She also became more seriously ill and Loki suspected that whatever disease she had, it was the one that was killing those who were old or infirm when the plague began. He took her to see a doctor and the doctor confirmed that she, too, was a victim of the epidemic. The doctor gave her only a few months to live, at best, and little to no hope of survival for the child.

Loki and Mary were both crushed by the news. He began to frantically search for answers, for anything he could find that would save the lives of Mary and their child. It was during this research that he discovered that the plague was no accident, engineered to eliminate those whose genetics were unfavourable to the government. He had a sinking realisation that this meant his child was also doomed. He proposed everything he could to Mary- fleeing the country, trying to get off-world to live on the colonies. Having the child extracted at one of the many labs that specialised in growing babies outside of their mothers. She shook her head at every suggestion- no nation was safe, off-world meant one had to pass a government physical, and the labs would not extract before three months unless a doctor deemed the situation critical. She reminded him that the labs also would not perform the procedure on ill mothers unless their survival or the survival of the child depended on it. Loki saw this as a loophole and began to call on every lab he could find. None of them would take her. The excuse was always that they were government funded and those who had the plague had to let it run its course, government orders. The plague had to do its job, they said. Loki locked himself in the bathroom and sobbed after his final call, waiting for Mary to come home from work and wondering just what he was going to tell her. He briefly entertained the idea of taking her to Asgard, but realised that the plague would still be in her body and he had no idea if the Aesir could contract the disease.

Mary died within three weeks of the calls. She had deteriorated rapidly. Loki begged the coroners to try to save the child, but they pronounced both dead. As he sat outside the morgue begging for anything he could take with him as a memorial, told only that plagued bodies were not to be released for burial or private cremation, he realised that he now had something in common with his father. He'd lost his beloved. Loki was struck by the profound revelation that this grief he had for Mary was the same that Odin felt for Frigga, even quite possibly a little less, as he had begun preparing for the worst while Odin walked in to find his wife unexpectedly dead. The coroner interrupted his thoughts and handed him two objects. One was the fine gold ring that Loki had given Mary only a year before and the other was a little gold heart with the word "baby" etched into it. The coroner explained they had very few little hearts left and had been giving them only to parents of born children, but he had been so moved by Loki's grief that he made an exception. Loki pressed both items to his heart, thanked the coroner, and left, returning to the flat to pack his belongings.

As he packed Mary's things, he found little items she had begun to collect for the baby- small shoes, a hat, and a few little blankets. He carefully packed all of them in the battered cardboard box he had brought from his flat and gave most of the rest of their possessions to a family in the building who had recently lost their father to the epidemic. When he returned to the flat, he had a second revelation. Odin had felt the loss of his child, too.

Loki sat down on the floor, his head in his hands, and whispered, "My god, he thought I was dead." He understood. He understood far more than he wanted to. He understood Odin's disappointment, his pain, and his anger. He understood grief. He understood just how terrible a son he had been so long ago. He also understood that his father was dead and there was absolutely nothing he could do to tell him that he finally got it, that he finally figured out just what he was to the family. It was at that moment that he decided he was going home, if home would still have him.

Loki did not call for Heimdall to bring him home, rather found one of the secret passages and walked into Asgard with only his pack and his cardboard box. He knew he looked terrible, his clothing worn, patched carefully by Mary's skilled hands, his scars harsh in the bright light of Asgard's sun. The city gleamed in the distance and he stopped, wondering if he should turn back and wander Midgard until he died, or if he should return to Jotunheim where there awaited a promise of certain death. Ultimately, something moved him forward. He wondered if anyone would recognise him in the city.

Loki tried to avoid the most busy streets as he entered the city late in the day, the sun setting and the shadows making it easier to hide his face. He did not want to resort to illusion- if Mary could hold him, could share her body and soul with him, just as he was, he felt as though hiding was something that disgraced her memory. So shadows it was.

As he approached the palace gates, he hesitated, dreading the flood of memories he knew would hit him as soon as he entered the halls. Childhood, imprisonment, Frigga's death. They began to trickle back even as Loki stood before the guards and asked for an audience with the king. They asked for his name. He gave it. They did not believe him and denied him entry. He knelt down on the step and opened the cardboard box. He carefully moved the baby items and remembrances of Mary from the top and pulled out a fine gold collar from the bottom. He handed it to the guard and told them to give it to Thor, he would be the judge of Loki's identity. Loki carefully resettled the objects in the box, making very sure that nothing, not even the little ring, had disappeared. He sat down on the steps and waited as someone was summoned to take the object in to the king.

It was dark by the time someone called for Loki to stand, ordered him to keep his hands where they could be seen, and escorted him into the palace. Loki kept his hands around the cardboard box, careful not to let the tension he was feeling cause him to grip it too tightly and crush it. The guards wanted him to remove the pack and leave the box with them before approaching the throne, but Loki refused. The guards were steadfast and he conceded that they could hold his pack on the condition that it be kept in sight at all times, but the box he could not risk losing. He told them as much. He told them what was in it- remembrances of his beloved Mary and their child. The guards were unmoved. Loki bowed his head and turned to leave, taking this refusal as a sign for certain that he would not be wanted and that he should have never returned to Asgard.

There was a voice from behind him- a once-familiar voice- that called his name, "Loki?"

Loki stopped and turned back, "Yes?"

Thor approached him, the guards falling into place around him; Thor waved them off, "Is it really you?" Loki nodded, "Why have you come back, Brother?" Thor asked.

Loki knelt down before the king and opened the little box, showing Thor the baby items and the little ring within, "Because of what I have lost, your Majesty. Because I finally understand what they felt for me. What they lost, too. Because I have no other home, as painful as this one is to return to."

Thor crouched down in front of Loki, "You must understand that it is a great risk to Asgard if I allow you to stay."

Loki kept his head low, "Of course. If you do not want me here, I will leave. Jotunheim will have me."

Thor sighed, "Jotunheim will kill you." Loki did not respond, placing the lid carefully back on the box and gently smoothing the lid down. Thor stood and reached out his hand. Loki looked at it for a moment and then accepted his brother's help rising, the box tucked under his other arm.

Loki did not expect it, but Thor embraced him, "Welcome home, little Brother. I have missed you."

Loki wrapped his free arm around his brother and held him tightly. He felt his composure waver and he choked back a sob as he was overwhelmed with loss and grief, safe in his brother's arms, a retreat he had once always had in times of sorrow. Thor dismissed the guard.

Once they had all left, Thor escorted Loki to a seat near the throne, "Now, Loki. Tell me about your box."

Loki gently opened it and took out the gold ring and the tiny heart, "Imagine you lost Jane because someone else thought she was a flawed thing to be disposed of before she had children. Now imagine she was carrying your child when they disposed of her and there was absolutely nothing you could do to stop them." At that, he closed his hand around both items, pressed them to his heart, and broke down, Thor catching the box as Loki slid off the bench, finally able to release everything he'd been keeping inside as he'd taken care of Mary in her last days, as he'd dealt with the bureaucracy of death, and as he'd given away their belongings and prepared to travel home. Thor set the box on the bench and knelt beside his brother, gathering him in his arms.

Time would tell if Loki could live in Asgard. For this moment, for this night, however, Thor knew his brother just needed to feel safe and cared for, loved as only his brother could love him. To Loki, who grieved in his brother's arms, that warmth and comfort was the only thing that pierced his sorrow. He clung to Thor, grateful for at least the little bit of forgiveness that allowed for this moment. In the morning, things might be different, but he would take the morning as it came. For now, he was home.


End file.
